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Weekly Lists
October 20, 2017 www.intellinews.com I Page 25
bne:Banker
Creditors of FC Otkrytie ready to sue Russian central bank in London
Kazakh central
bank approves €1bn assistance package for four banks
The decision to write off the subordinated bonds of bailed out Fi- nancial Corporation Otkritie that was greenlighted by the Central Bank of Russia (CBR) could be contested in the London Court of In- ternational Arbitrage by bondholders, according to Vedomosti daily.
Subordinated bonds of Russian private banks have been a hot po- tato on Russian debt market after the CBR said it will allow writing off the subordinated debt of bailed out banks.
Now the creditors of FC Otkritie have consolidated over $150mn of the $500mn issue maturing in 2019, enough to challenge the regu- lator's decision in LCIA. Since the CBR decision, the bonds has lost almost all of the value, trading at 15.6% of nominal as of October 19 and yielding 232.2% annually.
Kazakhstan’s central bank announced on October 18 that it has approved an assistance package worth KZT410bn (€1.04bn) for ATF Bank, Eurasian Bank, Tsesna Bank and Bank CenterCredit. The funds to assist the four local lenders were approved by the central bank’s board in September and October, the statement added.
The regulator has previously estimated that the government would provide over KZT500bn to support the Central Asian country’s bank- ing system between August and September. The newly approved assistance package is possibly part of a belated amount that the central bank planned to disburse earlier.
Kazakhstan’s banking sector – which has still not fully recovered from the 2008-9 financial crisis – has been hit by a rise in bad loans since the slump in world crude oil prices, which has depressed the entire Kazakh economy.
Liberty Bank, the third largest lender in Georgia, announced on October 13 that a Netherlands-based company, the European Financial Group, has purchased 74.64% of its equity. No further details about the transaction were revealed. The ultimate beneficiaries of the new owner are American citizens Igor Alexeev and Irakli Rukhadze and Ben Marson, a British citizen.
Previously, a local venture owned by former Georgian Prime Minister Lado Gurgenidze and Romanian businessman Dinu Patriciu owned 91.2% of the shares in the bank. Liberty Bank is the largest of the 17 small banks in Georgia, accounting for a market share of 5.6%.
Dutch investment group acquires Georgia's third largest bank